


apologies

by Lymans



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 06:29:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5081206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lymans/pseuds/Lymans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake and Amy talk. </p><p>A missing scene from 3.05 "Halloween, Part III."</p>
            </blockquote>





	apologies

**Author's Note:**

> There was a lot I loved about last night's episode. I laughed a lot and it was great to see Amy having such a good plot. However, there were other parts that disappointed me and left me feeling like the episode lacked an emotional resolution. 
> 
> Jake is a competitive person and that's an established character trait. But I feel like he went too far when he was trying to manipulate Amy, and it disappointed me that we never got a genuine apology from him for that as well as him excluding her. It felt like there needed to be another scene in the episode where he said sorry.

Shaw’s was still bustling with people even though it was gone one in the morning, a sure sign that the squad was taking advantage of their day off tomorrow. Gina and Charles were squabbling about something on the opposite side of the bar, while Terry was doing his best not to fall asleep at the table as Holt and Rosa played darts. The only person Jake couldn’t spot as he navigated his way through the crowd, drinks in hand, was Amy.

Her masterful achievement at both beating and humiliating himself and Holt had left her beaming proudly as he crowned her queen of the Nine-Nine and delivered the necessary title of “an amazing detective slash genius.” The squad had showered her with praise and demanded she recount her incredible feat again. However, she had been noticeably distant once the squad had spread out across the bar, always in conversation with somebody that wasn’t him.

He finally spotted her at a booth in the far corner, the same one they’d sat in on the day of Dozerman’s funeral. The gaudy gold crown was still perched on her head and the robe was draped around her shoulders. But, even from this distance, Jake could read the slump in her shoulders as she sat alone, away from everybody else.

“You want some company?”

She looked up as he approached and smiled but it was a half-hearted smile, lacking in her usual warmth and spark.

“Sure.”

Motioning for him to join her, she slid across the seat and it didn’t escape his attention that she left a sizeable gap between the two of them. The glass of red wine he placed in front of her earned a quiet thank you but otherwise she was silent as he nursed his own drink.

“So have I told you how awesome you were today?”

“You mentioned it.” She fell quiet again and sipped her drink before scanning the bar and checking her watch. “I think I’m going to go home. I’m tired and I just want to go to bed.”

“Oh, okay. Do you want me to-?”

“See you later, Jake,” she said, cutting off his offer to join her and sliding out of her seat.

Cape and crown still firmly in place, she strode out of the bar with only a wave to the rest of the squad and without so much as a look back at him.

Jake knew he’d screwed up. He’d known it the moment she’d stormed out of the briefing room after him and Holt got carried away vying for her emotions, except he’d been shallow and competitive and caught up in a bet that now, in the aftermath, seemed pointless. The adrenaline that had been rushing through him as he worked to beat Holt was gone now, and all that was left was the realisation that Amy was hurt because of him and his actions. He’d never felt worse.

Leaving his drink unfinished, he grabbed his jacket and retraced Amy’s steps out of the bar and into the chilly fall air. The street was relatively empty as he scanned for any sign of her amongst the stragglers leaving the subway and the few cabs passing along the street. Then he saw her leaning against the entrance to a closed coffee shop. Light from the streetlamp was reflecting off her crown, and he could clearly make out a cigarette in her hand and tendrils of smoke drifting in the air.

“Amy.”

She neither stubbed out her cigarette nor made a move towards him as he called her name, and he quickly jogged over to her.

“Jake, can we not do this right now? I’m really not in the mood.”

“I know you’re upset but I owe you an apology.”

She scoffed and stared at him with a wry smirk. “You owe me an apology? And how long it did it take you to work that out? Was it before or after you prioritised this whole ridiculous game over my feelings?”

Her voice was hard as she snapped at him and she angrily puffed on her cigarette after she finished speaking. The smoke drifted his way but she neither noticed nor cared as he coughed at the acrid smell.

“I know I got carried away-“

A snort escaped her as she crushed her cigarette underneath the heel of shoe before turning to face him.

“Carried away? Let’s recap, shall we? You didn’t choose me to be a part of your team because you didn’t trust me and accused me of faking our relationship to please our captain. Then, when I told you I was upset at being left out, you refused to apologise and instead yelled at my breasts. You subsequently ignored me until you realised that I had information you wanted. That was when you decided it would be a good idea to try and tell me you loved me in order to manipulate me so you could win a stupid bet. So no, you didn’t get carried away. You hurt me and manipulated me because this crown was more important to you than my feelings and our relationship.”

With that, she tore the crown off her head and shoved it into his chest, making him wince as the cheap plastic pressed against his ribs.

“There. It’s yours. I hope you’re very happy together.”

“Amy,” he said, letting the crown clatter onto the sidewalk and reaching out for her before she could walk away again.

“No.” This time her voice was strangled and he could see the tears starting to glisten in her eyes. He was officially a terrible human being. “Do you have any idea how awful the Captain and you made me feel today? You’re two of the most important people in my life and both of you treated me like I didn’t matter.”

Scratch that. Jake felt like the worst human being in the history of world. Amy was so important to him, more important than almost anyone. Today though, he’d forgotten to show her that. Instead he’d let himself get caught up in the game with its secret handshakes and mission impossible like action at the cost of his girlfriend’s feelings.

“Ames, I am sorry. What I did today was awful and I should have realised that I was going too far. You have to know that I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would _never_ want to hurt you.”

“Well you did.”

Her voice was quieter now but her body was still tense and her eyes were wet with unshed tears. The knowledge that he was the reason those tears were there made him feel even worse than before.

She eyed him for a moment before unlacing her cape and spreading it out on the sidewalk. Gracefully, she lowered herself down onto the ground and stretched her legs out into the road as she signalled for him to do the same. He was sure they looked like a right pair, her in her janitor’s costume and him begging for her forgiveness, but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered now was the woman next to him.

“I shouldn’t have put the bet in front of your feelings. It was insensitive and it was cruel and if I could take it back then I would.”

“But you can’t. You treated our relationship like a joke and, when you had to choose between me and winning, you made it clear which was more important.”

The idea that anything was more important to Jake than Amy Santiago was absurd. Every morning he woke up to her lying next to him and had to remind himself that this was finally real. This was his life. For some insane reason, Amy was choosing to date him, something that had seemed like an impossible dream for over a year. It was everything he had ever wanted and their relationship was the most important thing in his life.

Yet he had given her reason to doubt his feelings for her as well as how he felt about them. He had had a chance to show her just how much he trusted her and cared for her, and instead he had chosen a shot at glory, even when he had known he was hurting her.  

“I may not have shown it today but our relationship means everything to me. You mean everything to me. I am so sorry that I gave you any reason to doubt that. I owe you the biggest apology and I just hope that you can forgive me because I would hate myself forever if being an idiot cost me you.”

The silence stretched out for what felt like an eternity as he waited for her response. He had known he was getting caught up in the excitement of the bet, even when she had told them they were being mean, but it had felt so important when he was racing for the crown and trying to claim victory. Now though, it all felt silly and immature, and the idea that he could lose Amy because of it was terrifying.

“You really hurt me today. You and Holt. If we’re going to be in a relationship, we have to trust each other and have each other’s backs. You can’t treat me like I’m not important. And you can’t act like our relationship is trivial and a joke.”

“I swear I don’t think that.”

“When you wanted the janitor’s address, you didn’t think to just ask me and to trust that I would give it to you. And you didn’t think to apologise for leaving me out and to admit that you were wrong. Instead, your first instinct was not only to manipulate me, but to use our feelings for each other to your advantage. That’s the first time you’ve used the l-word with me and it was to try and win a game. How do you think that makes me feel?”

If he died right now then he was certain that he would be buried under a tombstone reading ‘Here lies Jake Peralta, the world’s biggest idiot.’

“I was wrong for doing that. I shouldn’t ever have taken advantage of our relationship and used it to try and win a game. And I promise you that when I really tell you that I love you, it’ll be a hell of a lot more special than in the briefing room as part of a silly bet.” He paused and swallowed heavily. “That is, if you’re willing to stick with me long enough for me to do that.”

His palms were sweating as he waited for an answer until she nudged him gently and he looked over to see her smiling softly at him.

“Thank you for apologising. I know you get competitive and you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t. But things are different between us now and you can’t ever act the way you did today. I won’t be treated like that.”

“I know that and I swear I won’t ever behave like that again.”

“Okay. Then I forgive you.”

Shuffling on the cape, Amy moved closer to him until she could lean against him and rest her head on his shoulder.

“So that’s it? We’re okay?”

“Yes. You apologised and I forgave you. It was a fight; our first fight. You forgive and you move on.”

He wrapped an arm around her arm and bent down to press a kiss to her hair, relishing the feeling of her sighing against him. His rash behaviour had almost screwed this up permanently and he swore to himself he would never come that close to losing her ever again.

Those three little words bubbled up in his throat as he held her and breathed in the lavender scent of her conditioner. But he knew that this wasn’t the time or place to tell her how he felt. He didn’t want her to look back and remember him telling her he loved her as another part of his apology. Amy deserved better than that.

So instead he just held her on the sidewalk while cabs drove by and the noise from Shaw’s spilt out onto the street. And when the cold air began to bite, he helped her up off the ground and placed the crown back on her head and the cape around her shoulders, before bending down to kiss her.

“I’ve smoked two cigarettes tonight,” she said, holding a finger in front of his lips when they were mere millimetres from her own.

“And I’ve vomited four times. I think we’ll be alright.”

He tried again but she ducked underneath his arm with a laugh and slid her hand into his jacket pocket, pulling out the half eaten pack of gum he always kept there. Pressing one piece into his palm, she popped another into her mouth and gave him a wide smile.

“Now you can kiss me…if you can catch me.”

Then she was off, running down the sidewalk with her hair and cape flying out behind her. He blinked for a moment as his body caught up with his brain and then shoved his own piece of gum into his mouth before racing after her.

He caught her just as she was turning the corner and pulled her to him, relishing the sound of laughter spilling from her mouth. Then he was kissing her, something that still felt new and exciting even though he had lost count of just how many times they had kissed. And as she kissed him back, her fingers disappearing into his hair and tugging at the short strands, he promised himself that he would do everything he could to spend the rest of his life letting Amy know just how wonderful and important she was.


End file.
